Kumihimo Wire Jewelry by Giovanna Imperia, subtitled Essential Techniques + 20 Jewelry Projects for the Japanese Art of Braiding. Excellent photos of interesting projects with good detailed description on how Japanese braids are made, how wire behaves, finishing a braid for jewelry, some metal working techniques and an excellent suppliers list. Full color, softcover, 144 pages, $21.99. Errata

Kongo Gumi A Cacophony of Spots - Coils - Zags - Lines by Rosalie Neilson. This comprehensive book covering Kongo Gumi has 1,157 designs, instructions for braiding Z-ply and S-ply braids on the marudai or the foam disk. It also includes history, structural characteristics, template development and bibliography. Full color and 142 pages, $60.00.

Textures and Edges for Takadai Braids by Jennie Parry takes you systematically through a series of tactile textured single braids made on the takadai and 12 different edges. The doors are then open for you to design your own personal range of oblique interlaced braids. Minimum skills needed to explore these patterns are a familiarity with setting up a takadai and the ability to follow plain and twill hand moves. All the braids discussed use either 33 or 38 bobbins. The book also included reproducible pages for making your own designs.

Takadai Rep Braids by Richard Sutherland. Learn how to produce colorful belt-width braids by adapting a standard size takadai for use with 80 weighted threads. Richard combines the freedom of fingerbraiding with the orderliness of a takadai. Six original patterns suitable for cotton, wool, or silk belts are provided, with methods for buckle or sash starts. Included is a detailed section on creating one’s own unique designs.

Errata for page 23, on both the color graph and the plain graph, a hatch mark needs to be added to Right Side Moves 9 and 10. On Move 9 the right side square touching the center line, and Move 10 the square next to it (one up from the center line).

Sixty Sensational Samples: A Kumihimo Collection by Shirley Berlin and Carol Goodwin. This book can be used as a workbook. All you need to know is how to use a marudai (or a disk). The book consists of color photos of the braids (back and front and close-up) and all the information needed to recreate them along with very helpful comments by the authors. Spiral bound, soft cover, around 100 pages. $37.50

The Twenty-Four Interlacements of Edo Yatsu Gumi by Rosalie Neilson is a companion book to the The Thirty-Seven Interlacements of Hira Kara Gumi. The book illustrates the 24 different 2-color placements of braiding elements on a Marudai (this braid can be made on the Hamanaka disk) to achieve the 24 definitive designs in Edo Yatsu Gumi, the 8-strand round braid which is the most familiar one to braiders (and used the most by jewelery makers). Only a few of these unique designs are ever shown in kumihimo books, and they’re usually the spiral design using 4 elements A and 4 elements B. (When using the book, braiders should also think about using two different weights of elements to achieve even more unique designs.) The book is 48 pages, limited to a printing of 500 copies, numbered and signed by the author. The pages are folded like Japanese books with a printed cover replicating a “stitched” binding. $25.00

More on the Publications for use with the Kumihimo Disk and Plate page